


Vedere

by plaguehaver



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Gen, Getting Glasses Fic, Glasses, Pre-Canon, SI-5, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 15:36:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19022827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plaguehaver/pseuds/plaguehaver
Summary: Jacobi had been in dozens of shootouts, had defused bombs seconds away from detonating, had facedCutterin his office more than once, but for whatever reason,thiswas what made sweat start to bead up on his brow.The Goddard doctor had him sitting on an examination table when she turned off the lights and asked him to read illuminated letters on the opposite wall. He pursed his lips and covered his right eye at the doctor’s instruction.“Okay,” she said. “Read the top line.”





	Vedere

**Author's Note:**

> some writers put their favorite characters through terrible, horrifyingly traumatizing events, and some don't write 2k about them having to get glasses

Jacobi hadn’t been working for Goddard very long when a new, let’s say Problem, arose. Now, the ‘new’ modifier here may not have been entirely accurate. The Problem wasn’t one that Jacobi hadn’t encountered before, just one that he had never encountered in this specific context before. This ‘specific context’ of course being that his superior officer was about to be taken out by an enemy agent, and Jacobi’s only hope of saving the man was to shoot his attacker from a distance. A long, long, _long_ distance. Now, objectively, that might have been an exaggeration as well, but through Jacobi’s eyes it certainly wasn’t.

The man was a patch of black against the dark grey background of the night. Kepler was making his exit from the building they had been instructed to infiltrate, important data in hand. Jacobi was supposed to hang back and do his job, so he hung back and did his job, which was going to prove to be fatal pretty damn soon. The man didn’t have a gun, or Kepler would be dead already, but Kepler still didn’t seem to notice him, _for the love of god_ why wasn’t he noticing him?

Jacobi wasn’t a sniper, and the gun he was currently wielding certainly wasn’t a sniper rifle. And, okay _maybe_ he was over exaggerating the distance a _little bit_ , but it still wasn’t a shot he could reasonably make. Oh god, he couldn’t make this shot. But there wasn’t time for panicking. Every second he spent panicking was putting Kepler another foot in the grave. So Jacobi pulled the trigger.

And missed by a mile. It was laughable, actually, how far the spot where the bullet hit the gravel was from his intended target. Luckily for Jacobi, the sound of it still managed to alert Kepler that he was in danger, and Jacobi watched in awe as he spun around on his heel, levelled the barrel, and shot the man dead between the eyes. Kepler checked around him for any more threats before continuing on, noticeably faster, toward the rendezvous point that he and Jacobi had agreed on earlier.

By the time Jacobi came face-to-face with Kepler again, he had figured out who the shot had come from. Their nondescript car bumped along the dirt road, curving around trees and fences from long-gone estates. The only light they were allotted came from the car’s headlights and the numbers on the dashboard, displaying some radio channel that only brought up static and the faintest sounds of jazz trumpets.

“What the _hell_ was that shot, Mr. Jacobi?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but that guy was coming after you and I had to do _something_.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“...I’m sorry?”

“Come on… you’re SI-5 now! That shot was pathetic, you couldn’t have done worse if you had your eyes closed.”

“Hey, I just saved your life!”

Kepler laughed, deep in his chest. “Of course, of course. I’m just saying that we’re going to have to do a _lot_ of work on your shooting if you’d prefer to live through the next year.”

Jacobi chuckled in that way people do when they hope that someone’s joking, oh lord, _Kepler better be joking_.

Long story short? He wasn’t.

* * *

That wasn’t the last time that Jacobi’s Problem made itself known. In fact, it’s far from it. The next incident occurred in a situation that a normal person would not describe as being traumatizingly stressful. Unfortunately, Daniel Jacobi and Alana Maxwell were not normal people.

“Jacobi, hurry up, _hurry up_!”

“I’m going twenty over the speed limit, what more do you want from me? Oh god, Cutter’s gonna skin us alive.”

“Not if Kepler gets to us first. I thought you said we’d have plenty of time to make it across town!” The two of them were speeding down the highway, dressed in their finest formalwear and sweating off their makeup from pure, uncut stress.

“We were supposed to have plenty of time! How was I supposed to know that there’d be a four-car pileup blocking up the entirety of downtown? What’s the time?”

“6:51. Mandatory company party starts at 7. ETA is twelve minutes but we can make it in less if you could just _pick up the pace_.”

“Alana, I’m going 120 in a 75, just shut up and give me directions. What exit do I take?”

“Exit 247.”

“Okay, okay.” Jacobi pressed the gas pedal into the floor of the footwell, the engine screaming. His 2008 Honda Civic was not meant to take this kind of strain and it was certainly making the two of them acutely aware of that.

“Daniel, Daniel, _Daniel_!” Maxwell slammed her hands against the dashboard.

“What!?”

“You missed the exit!”

“ _What_?”

Maxwell doubled over and buried her face in her hands. “It was _right there_ Daniel, how could you miss that?”

“How am I supposed to see something that far away?”

“It wasn’t,” Maxwell sighed. “How the _fuck_ are you allowed to drive?”

“I wish I could answer that.”

“Wait, is that- are those sirens? Jacobi!”

“ _Fuck_.” The telltale red-and-blue lights flashed in Jacobi’s rearview mirror, and he hit the brakes, pulling over to the side of the interstate.

“I hate you,” Maxwell grumbled into her hands. “The Major is gonna _fucking_ kill us.”

The terror twins survived the party, but when Kepler finally found them, they began to wish that they hadn’t.

* * *

Jacobi had never been on this floor alone before, he was sure of it, and he stepped across the gleaming floors like they were made of glass. The secretary he had passed on his way in had waved him past with neither a glance nor an encouraging word, so his nerve endings were on high alert. He was practically jumping at his own shadow. When he reached the front door of the office, Jacobi reached a hand out towards the handle, only to have the glass door slide horizontally out of his way.

“Uh, Mr. Cutter? You wanted to see me, sir?”

“Oh, Daniel,” A voice said from inside. “Come right in, don’t be shy!” Jacobi stepped gingerly into Cutter’s office, trying to tamp down the bolt of fear that always managed to show its face whenever Cutter was around. The office was decorated in a way that spoke generously of Cutter’s expensive taste. The wall opposite to the entrance was made completely of windows, displaying a proud view of the city skyline. Jacobi glanced over to Cutter’s gleaming mahogany desk only to find it vacant.

“Over here!” Jacobi whipped his head around to the direction that the voice had come from. Cutter lounged in a plush leather chair next to an artificial fireplace. Another chair was placed across from him with a black glass coffee table in between. Cutter gestured to it with a graceful, manicured hand, and smiled. “Take a seat, Daniel.”

Jacobi had only ever been in Cutter’s office once before, and he had been with Kepler the whole time. Being alone set his nerves on end, as if he was waiting for Cutter to make a move on his life. He shook off the idea, though. That was ridiculous. If Cutter wanted him killed, he certainly wouldn’t do the deed himself, and certainly not on floors this nice. So he took a seat, shifting uncomfortably with his hands fiddling in his lap.

“Do you know why I called you in here today, Daniel?” Cutter never stopped smiling, his skin smooth and his blond hair perfectly slicked back.

“Uh, is it about the top-secret upcoming mission?”

“It _is_! You know, Warren is _always_ telling me how smart you are, but I never really get to see that brain of yours in action. Isn’t this such a nice change?”

“Uhh, _yeah_ …”

“Anyways- the mission. Daniel, how would you… like to go to space?” Cutter’s words lingered in the air as he looked at Jacobi expectantly for a response. Jacobi wasn’t quite sure what the right answer was. _Space?_ I mean, it always seemed cool to him as a kid, but his dreams of being an astronaut fell away from him as soon as he moved on to his next periodic obsession. He knew that Goddard had a space program, but as SI-5 it didn’t really seem like that was an area he would expect to be working in.

Cutter kept staring at him, so Jacobi muttered out a weak, “Space?” and tried to figure out what the man was getting at.

“Yes, space! As in, _out of this atmosphere_. As I’m sure you know, Goddard has funded numerous research expeditions to nearby stars. We currently have stations orbiting Luyten 726, Ross 154, and Wolf 359. Their research all seemed to be going well until we encountered some… disciplinary issues with the crew of Ross 154. Now, normally I wouldn’t spare them a second glance, just switch them out for another team and keep going on with business as usual, but we have collected some very important research from Ross 154, and the crew seems to have decided to use it as leverage.”

“So what do you want SI-5 to do?” Cutter’s smile widened, if that was even possible.

“I would like you and the rest of the team to dock on the USS Lapetus, extract the information, and then _terminate_ the mission.” Jacobi didn’t miss the underlying meaning. “So. Sound good?” Jacobi shrugged noncommittally before straightening up, remembering where he was.

“I mean, yes. Yes, sir.”

“Wonderful. Your training starts tomorrow.”

Space training wasn’t much different than regular training, aside from the fact that it was _way fucking harder_. Who know that a zero gravity simulator would make fighting so much more difficult? Hand-to-hand combat seemed near impossible to Jacobi while floating around in the air, meanwhile Kepler, of course, had no problem with it. Jacobi regularly walked home covered in bruises from where Kepler had kicked his ass.

Along with the training, though, came a whole new round of physicals. Every week, Jacobi, Maxwell, and Kepler each had to have their physical condition recorded and updated, making _absolutely_ sure that they were ready for space flight. When he had first been accepted to SI-5, Jacobi remembered going through a quick physical, but never anything as in-depth as this. They measured everything there was to measure, from his weight to his hemoglobin count. A few weeks in, though, the day Jacobi had long been dreading finally came to fruition: Eye exam day.

The Goddard doctor had him sitting on an examination table when she turned off the lights and asked him to read illuminated letters on the opposite wall. He pursed his lips and covered his right eye at the doctor’s instruction.

“Okay,” she said. “Read the top line.”

Jacobi did. “A, R, F, G, D.” She nodded.

“The next line.”

“L, M, X, V, U.”

“The next line.” Jacobi had been in dozens of shootouts, had defused bombs seconds away from detonating, had faced _Cutter_ in his office more than once, but for whatever reason, _this_ was what made sweat start to bead up on his brow. The letters in the third row were fuzzy, and Jacobi could see the vague outline of their shapes, but the lines seemed to blur together.

“E, Y, N?” He paused, trying to gauge the doctor’s reaction, but she didn’t look up at him, just continued to write down notes on her clipboard. “D, C,” he finished.

“Can you read the next line?”

“I… no. I can’t,” Jacobi said, his earlier confidence completely drained. The doctor pressed her lips together into a firm line and looked up at him.

“Well, Mr. Jacobi, I’m not exactly sure how you managed to avoid it for this long, but it looks like you’re going to need glasses. Now, tell me. Which one of these looks better, one or two? One… or two?”

* * *

For everyone who ends up wearing glasses, there’s an inevitable moment in which their Problem looks them right in the face. Maybe it’s when they first put their glasses on, only to have their entire sense of balance completely thrown off. Maybe it’s the first time they see themselves in the mirror and have to come to terms with the fact that This Is What I Look Like Now. For Jacobi, this moment comes when he walks into training the day after, a pair of browline glasses adorning his face, complete with an elastic strap keeping them firmly attached to his face.

Maxwell nearly keels over in laughter. The Major isn’t keeping it together much better either, and Jacobi scowls at them as he walks into the gym.

“Shut up, I already know what you’re going to say.”

“Actually, Mr. Jacobi, I was going to say that they quite suit you.”

“You’re lying.” Kepler laughs from deep in his gut.

“I am.”

“Oh god,” Maxwell says, wheezing as she tries to regain her breath. “You can _never_ call me a nerd again.” Jacobi elbows her.

“This whole thing is stupid anyways. I was perfectly fine with my eyesight for years, I don’t need glasses!”

“You do,” Kepler said.

“You really do,” Alana agrees. “But glasses do seem kind of inconvenient for our line of work. Why didn’t you get contacts.”

“Uh,” Jacobi coughs. “They said my prescription was too bad for contacts.” This sends Maxwell into another fit of laughter and Kepler smiles as he starts laying out the day’s schedule. The rest of training is unbearable. Maxwell takes any opportunity she can to try and knock the glasses off Jacobi’s face, and Kepler has to bite back a smile every time he looks at him. _Stupid Kepler_ , Jacobi thinks, rather eloquently. _Stupid Alana. Stupid space mission. Stupid glasses._

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! hope you enjoyed!
> 
> you can catch me on my writing tumblr [@plaguehaver](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/plague-haver) or my personal [@thedominoswizard](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/thedominoswizard)


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